Stars In Our Hearts

Part 13

I crossed my arms as we stood in front of Sendak in the detainment room. A scowl was clearly present on my face. I ignored whatever Lance was saying until he mentioned that he wanted all of his memories to be stored in a giant ship when he goes. "The amount of information in your brain could be stored in a paper airplane" Keith retorted. I stopped myself from laughing. "Oh yeah? Well the amount of information you have, Keith, could be..." Lance stopped. "Yeah?" Keith questioned, his arms crossed. "Uh...it's less that what I have!" Lance continued. "Oh, good one, Lance" Hunk complimented. We watched as Coran finished typing away. After a while, nothign was happening and it was getting boring. "Well, I can't just stand here anymore, so I'll be in the training deck if you need me" I said. "I'll go with you" Keith stretched his arms. We then walked off. "Spar with me?" I summoned my bayard. "You're on" Keith smirked, summoning his as well. We stood apart from each other before Keith charged at me. I dodged his attack, placing my staff on the ground, I used it to support my jump, I wrapped one of my legs around his neck and the other into his side, knocking him over. We rolled and I ended up sitting on top of him, my knee pressed into his back while he laid on his stomach. "I wasn't expecting that" Keith heaved himself up. "Always expect the unexpected" I got back into my stance as he returned to his. 

I put my leg on his shoulder as I prepared for a spinning kick but he pushed me down. The pole of my staff caught the under of his arm, knocking him down with me. My back hit the and I shut my eyes upon impact. I opened my eyes to see Keith's staring into mine. I blinked a bit before my face turned red upon realizing the position we were in. He was on top of me with his hands on both sides of my head, my leg was over his shoulder. He realized this and blushed as well before getting up. He held his hand out to me. "Take a break?" he asked. I took his hand. "Yeah, let's take a break" I got up. After a few minutes, we decided to get back to training, but with the gladiator this time. It didn't take us long to fight with the gladiator. "Start training level three" I said. The gladiator them fell from the ceiling and we began to fight it. I jumped over its staff and hit it with my own before Keith came in and hit it. As I landed, I didn't have enough time to dodge its swing and it sent me flying. Then it hit Keith and was sent flying and rolling into me. We got up. "End training sequence" Keith said. Nothing stopped. "End training sequence" I reiterated. Nothing stopped. The gladiator got closer to us. "END TRAINING SEQUENCE!" we both yelled then the gladiator attacked us. It knocked mine and Keith's bayards out of our hands and then sent us flying once again with a kick. I looked at my bayard and ran towards it. I slid across the ground, avoiding the gladiators attack, grabbing my bayard in the process. Keith did the same but slid on his knees. We ran out of the training deck and closed the door. We took heavy breaths trying to calm down. Then the gladiator's sword came through the door. "Run!" I grabbed Keith's wrist and began sprinting. We ran and every now and then had to block the gladiators' attacks. "HELP!" I heard Lance. "Lance?" I questioned. I looked over and he was in the airlock. "What are you doing in there?" I asked, blocking an attack. I was knocked down and my back hit the door of the airlock. "MELODY! KEITH!" Lance cried out. Keith then came flying against the airlock. "Watch out!" Lance pointed. "Keith, hold the gladiator off while I get Lance out of here" I said. "Got it" Keith blocked an attack. "I need to get out of here right now or else I'm gonna get sucked out into space!" Lance shouted. "I'm trying Lance" I yelled back, having to block another attack. "I'm getting sucked out into space!" Lance cried. I placed the end of my staff down and sent a powerful kick into the gladiator, putting is some distance away. Keith got in front of it and began to attack it. I turned around and hit the button, opening the door. Keith pushed the gladiator out of the door and moved next to me. "Keith! Keith, come on!" Lance grabbed Keith's outstretched hand. Keith pulled Lance back to us and I closed the door. I let out a sigh as we all sat against the wall. "What were you doing out there?!" Keith yelled at Lance. "Who was that guy?!" Lance yelled back. "He was trying to kill us!" Keith argued. "Well is he the castle? Because that's who's trying to kill me!" Lance pointed to himself. Upon Lances words, our eyes widened and we gasped. We then began running while Lance screamed. "This is a nightmare that I want to end!" I whined. We eventually found Coran. "Let's go find Pidge and Hunk" I breathed. We opened the door to the Green Lions hangar and I heard quite a few thuds. "How could you guys be taking a nap while the castle's trying to kill us?" Lance asked. "Taking a nap? We've been floating around in Zero G! You know how scary that is?" Hunk questioned. "That's not scary! That's fun! I was almost ejected into space!" Lance yelled. "I got attacked by killer food and that the most horrifying thing you can imagine!" Hunk argued back. "Well, we had a robot try to kill us!" Keith butted in. I nodded. "I don't care what you say, Coran, this castle has gone apples and bananas!" Lance turned to Coran. "Perhaps the infection from Sendak's Galra crystal is worse than we thought" Coran looked at the crystal. "Then let's get rid of it" Hunk said. "It's too late, when Sendak plugged it into the ship, it corrupted the entire system" Coran explained. "Sendak? Wait, have you guys seen Shiro?" I asked. We then began running back to the detainment room. "Shiro!" I ran over to him. "Where's Sendak?" Keith asked. "I had to get rid of him, I was hearing his voice, he-he can't be trusted on this ship" Shiro answered. He obviously experienced a mental break. "Hey, hey, calm down, it's alright" I put my hand on his shoulder. I looked up at the others as I sat down next to Shiro. "It is the ship! I got stuck in a cryo-pod, then in an airlock, Keith and Melody got attacked by a robot and Hunk and Pidge were attacked by food! It's been a weird morning" Lance exclaimed. Then an alarm went off. We turned and looked at the warning. "What? How's that possible?" Coran questioned. "What is it?" Keith asked. "The ship is starting a wormhole jump!" Coran answered. We all got up and sprinted to the main control room. "Allura, what's going on?" Shiro asked. "We're going to Altea, we're going home" she replied, smiling back at us. We all ran towards her only to be stopped by a forcefield around her and some guy on the screens yelling at us. "Allura, wake up!" I called out to her. "The crystal must have corrupted King Alfor's artificial intelligence" Coran said. Suddenly we were in front of a huge giant ball of fire. "We're headed straight to a star and it's about to explode!" Pidge exclaimed. We all stared, wide eyed. Coran was able to snap Allura out of it. Allura went to stop this only to be zapped out. She then began conversing with her A.I. father. It was kinda freaky. Allura ordered for us to get to our lions while she disconnected her father's A.I. manually. "You got it, princess" we all went to our lions. We flew our lions against the ship to move it. Allura came on and told us to get back to the hangars and we did as told. We then wormholed our way out of there just in time. We all gathered around Allura as she spoke about her father. 

Later on, I found Shiro sitting by himself. "Shiro?" I walked up to him. "Oh, hey Melody" he greeted. I sat next to him. He looked upset. "Is this about what happened with Sendak earlier?" I asked. He sighed. I rested my hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to tell me but you can if you want" I smiled. He smiled back before explaining to me what he had experienced. I listened, silently until he was done. "You know, my mom used have similar episodes when she was around something that triggered her PTSD" I said. Shiro looked at me. "I wouldn't be surprised if you also had, after everything you went through, but my mom always had my dad there to help her through it" I looked up at him. "I'm always here to help out if you ever need it, you don't have to fight it alone" I smiled. He smiled before embracing me in a hug.